Mark Brown spoke to Jill during a pop-up vaccination session in New Cross Gate, London, in May 2021.
TRANSCRIPT
MB: This is Mark Brown for Lewisham Vaccination Stories. I am here in Besson Street Community Garden, on a windy day in late May, and I’m here with…?
JM: Jill Mountford.
MB: Jill, you’ve had your first vaccination. What was it like?
JM: I didn’t know. When I went in to have my vaccination, I spoke to two lovely trainee doctors they were, and I said that I was a little bit nervous and I was going to sing so that I couldn’t hear the needle going in. They laughed and said, “Does it make a sound then?” I said, “Oh, I’m sure it does. Yes, I’m sure it does.” They said, “Well, you’ve already been vaccined,” and that is how simple it was.
It was a very positive and good experience. I had AZ and the next day I had some mild symptoms, and I know they were mild symptoms of COVID because exactly a year previously on the 16th March, I started with COVID and was ill in bed for two weeks, and got my vaccination on the anniversary of my becoming sick, so I knew it was symptoms.
MB: Before you had your vaccination, was there anything that was worrying you?
JM: No, not remotely; not about the vaccine, anyway, about the state of the world, for sure, but not about the vaccine, no.
MB: How has the last year been for you?
JM: I hate talking about how the last year has been for me personally, because the last year has been wretched for everybody, with very few exceptions, I would imagine. However, I think everybody should be given the space to talk about just how dreadful it has been on a personal level.
There is always somebody worse off, absolutely, but everyone has got a right to recognise and to be recognised that they’ve had a hard year, and I’m no different from anybody else. It has been a wretched year.
MB: It has not been great, but hopefully with this vaccination programme we are coming to the end of that. What I wanted to ask you is, what are you looking forward to for the future, once we all get this COVID thing licked?
JM: Well, I’m a revolutionary socialist, so I’m looking forward to a different kind of world than we’ve got now.
MB: Excellent. Thank you.
JM: Sorry, but there is no bullshit answer what I’m looking forward to, okay?